by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
For some college students, summer is a time to relax and have fun with friends. For others, it’s a time to plan and execute an adventure. For others, it’s a time to get a job and make some money.
A group of hospitality management majors from Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin fall into the latter two categories. They are spending eight weeks of their summer breaks as interns at the Omni Jacksonville Hotel.
Each has chosen a specific area of interest from working at the front desk or in the executive suite to housekeeping to food service or engineering.
All agreed the eight-week hands-on crash course in the hotel business has been an invaluable learning experience.
“The Omni is an awesome place to work and I’ve learned so much about the fundamentals of running a hotel and what it takes to be successful,” said Sophia Rutledge, who is majoring in Hospitality Management at Bethune-Cookman University.
Calvin Olson is majoring in Hospitality at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. He has worked in other hotels, mostly at the front desk, but this summer he has been learning how the Housekeeping Department operates at the Omni and said, “I’ve learned a lot about managing people. It’s a different experience (than at the front desk) managing a department with so many people in it.”
In addition to valuable real-world experience, Marta Baran, a student at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa. said she will get three college credits this summer. It’s a requirement for graduation from the Hospitality Management program.
“I mostly work at the front desk but each week I spend a coupe of hours in other departments,” she said.
Another Mercyhurst Hospitality major, Andrea Villela, said, “My goal is to become a general manager some day so I will have to understand how every department works.”
She has been working in the Housekeeping Department this summer and added, “It’s hard work and I have learned a lot. The only way to understand how housekeeping works is to clean rooms.”
Brittany Froelich isn’t on the hospitality track; she’s majoring in International Business and Spanish at Florida State University and is working this summer in the Omni’s Sales and Marketing Department. Among her duties are writing the newsletter that is distributed to guests and working in the Convention Services Department. She said her internship has been an enlightening experience.
“I’m surprised. In college you think about the glamour of the hotel industry, but this summer I’ve learned it’s a lot of work,” said Froelich.
University of Central Florida General Hospitality Management major Ashlyn Kendrick agreed there is an advantage to the hands-on experience gained through the internship.
“The thing I will always remember about this summer is that guest service can’t be taught in a classroom,” she said. “You can’t really learn how to work with guests without actually working with guests.”
The students in the intern program at the Omni this summer are gaining invaluable experience and in some cases, credit toward graduation but the value to Omni Hotels is just as great, according to Wendy Priesand, the Omni’s director of sales and marketing.
“It’s basically a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job interview. It really gives us a chance to see who fits in. When we find a candidate we like, we invite them back as a Leadership In Development candidate, she said, referring to the Omni’s career development program for recent college graduates whose education prepared them for a career in the hospitality industry.
“Omni Hotels is growing as a corporation. We face a challenge to attract and retain the best associates,” said Priesand. “Internship is the first step in a career with Omni. The system gives us the opportunity to train people the way we want to train them. They are all potential future general managers and department directors.
“It’s how we grow our garden.”
356-2466